Wednesday, November 05, 2014

What Would Brigham Young Think This Morning?

In the election yesterday we saw the first ever black female was elected to the Congress as a Republican. Mia Love, will represent Utah's 4th congressional district. Her parents fled from Haiti to escape Papa Doc and here is their daughter being elected to the Congress. It is in many ways a quintessential American story and I am pretty happy to see this take place. Here is the hitch. Take a look at the family photo below.

Great looking family! Except that Ms. Love was elected in what is certainly a hugely mormon district. As it happens, those same mormons are all required to recognize Brigham Young as a prophet of God, a prophet on par with any of the prophets of the Old Testament and as such when he spoke he did so on behalf of God. Brigham would not be happy to see his current day followers electing a black woman in a mixed race marriage to represent them in Congress. In fact he would probably be wondering why she had not been put to death or at least her husband Jason Love. You see Brigham didn't much care for blacks, calling them the descendants of Cain and their dark skin the sign of the curse God placed on Cain. They were barred from being "priests" in the mormon church. When it came to the idea of mixed marriages he was even more of a mad dog, calling for the execution of the parties involved....

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so" (Journal of Discourses, 10:110).

Notice the emphatic "this will always be so". Doesn't leave much wiggle room, does it? Subsequent "prophets" of the so-called "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" reinforced that blacks were an inferior people and unworthy in both the "pre-existence" and to hold the mormon "priesthood", at least until it became politically inexpedient like polygamy and God suddenly changed His mind. Funny how that works. "This will always be so...until it becomes too uncomfortable in the culture".

Now it is true that many alleged Christians held to pretty ugly racist positions back in the day, and some still do. The difference is that I can say they were completely wrong. Mormons don't have that same ability because to question the statement of a prophet on a matter of doctrine is to call into question the entire system. This is the difference between the Christian faith based on the revealed Word of God and the mormon religion and other cults based on the whims and declarations of men.

While I am sure Brigham Young would be irate this morning, I wish Ms. Love and her beautiful family the very best and hope that she honorably serves in Congress. I hope even more fervently that she and her fellow adherents to mormonism have their hearts changed and that they turn from the false religion of mormonism and into saving faith in Jesus Christ. That is my hope and my prayer for Ms. Love, her family and all of those trapped in the cult of mormonism.